


(It only took) Five Weeks

by shetlandowl



Series: It takes time [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Professors, And poor Steeb. He just can't do anything right even when he does do everything right, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Not angst so much as Tony cockblocking himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-23 08:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: After a year-long sabbatical abroad, Tony returns to his post at the Department of Architecture at MIT in time to hear all the excitement over a hot new stud on Fury's faculty roster, a Dr. Steve Rogers. As a genius and the only MIT alumnus in the faculty, he's not used to being eclipsed by anyone, and he doesn't take it all that well.





	1. Week 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be short... I wanted to practice a "short" one-shot, and I had three ideas. [I asked the IMZY family](https://www.imzy.com/bringing_food_to_lab_stony/post/help_poor_indecisive_writer) for help, and Professors AU won! 
> 
> As always, many thanks to [ishipallthings](http://www.ishipallthings.tumblr.com) for all her support! And not least, thanks to all of you awesome IMZY folks who helped me with this decision in the vote! (To those who voted in favor of Professors AU, I hope this lives up to your expectations!)

_Tuesday, Jan 3rd 2017_

A knock on his office door pulled Tony’s attention away from his dad’s old journals, and with a huff of a grunt he spun his chair around to face his visitor. 

“—Finally! Tony, you’re back! Have you seen the new guy?” Jane whispered with excited urgency. “You’ve heard they hired Rogers, right?”

“Is that the same Rogers Sharon and Coulson were telling me about in the lounge?” Tony wondered rhetorically, “or is it the new guy Clint wouldn’t shut up about in line for coffee? Either way, it seems Fury outdid himself,” he added when Jane’s smile fell into an unimpressed stare. 

“Okay, I’m sensing some resentment...” Jane began in a soft, patient voice. Tony only sniffed and turned away from her, clearly dismissing her in favor of his journals. 

Despite Tony’s disgruntled airs, Jane stepped into his office and closed the door behind her, even daring to come closer to him and inviting herself to one of his guest chairs. 

“We did miss you, Tony,” she assured him. “How was your sabbatical?”

“Clearly not as exciting as whatever Adonis behind Door Number Two has to offer,” Tony muttered petulantly. “Yeah, Sharon told me he’s _real_ dreamy.”

Undeterred, Jane sat up in the chair and tried to soothe his nerves by leaning closer, lowering her voice even in the privacy of Tony’s office to offer a coveted detail of the whole affair. 

“Would you feel better if I told you we scooped him from Harvard?”

Tony managed a facade of nonchalance for several silent seconds where he neither read nor wrote into the journal, but he couldn’t fight his interest any longer than that. Soon enough, he looked up and asked, “Harvard?”

“ _Yes_ , and in the eleventh hour,” Jane said with a smirk. “You should have seen the bidding war: we’re lucky Fury’s bald already or he’d have lost it all seducing Rogers. You remember the Battle for Banner?” 

“Epic,” Tony agreed with an answering grin. “For a while I really thought he’d go Princeton.”

“He came here to work with you,” Jane reminded him, and then with a quiet whisper added, “and, rumor has it Fury used the same trick on Rogers.”

“I see what you’re trying to do,” Tony interrupted her, suddenly anything but amused. “Appeal to the Stark ego? Sure, I’m legendary, I get it—but you’re not patching this hole with that old line; there’s no reason for Fury to dangle _me_ to a man like that. We’ve got nothing in common, Jane: he’s frou frou architecture who likes sculpture gardens; I’m green energy, sustainable urbanization.”

“Maybe you should Google the man,” Jane suggested, and she got up then to head back to her own office. “I know you’ve only got three degrees, but it’s this website, you can put people’s names into it and it retrieves information for you—”

“—No, wait a minute, I don’t approve of this,” Tony cut in, “who taught you sarcasm?”

“His latest project in Nigeria is a school made entirely with recycled local resources, and it is designed to remain cool year round. It’s extraordinary, and beautiful,” she added, “people are already talking about the Auguste Perret.”

“ _Please_. Perret? He’s what, 22?”

“You’re only about a decade off,” she replied from the doorway. “His office is across from mine. You know, in case you decide he is worthy of your attention.”

Tony rolled his eyes and loudly scoffed in her wake. “Never!”

*** 

There was no more caffeine in reach. Four cups precariously littered the desk beside Tony’s three screens and six tablets, and every single one of them was empty. It was an insult, and, if Tony was honest, hurtful. 

“Where’s that kid with our damn coffee?” he groused at his notes, doing away with the nearest offensive cup. 

Bruce looked up from his own microscope not too far away, and with a glance at his own watch said, “Pietro left the lab two hours ago.”

“But _whyyyyyy?_ ” Tony complained, even deigning to look up from his notes and his codes long enough to bat his eyelashes in his partner’s direction. Unfortunately, Bruce’s back was turned at the time, and so the effort was entirely moot. “Where are we, Communist Russia? How am I expected to work in these conditions, Bruciebear? Where’s our damn grad students?”

“Lunch, probably,” Bruce guessed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to stretch your legs.”

Tony sat up to remind Bruce to mind his own business when his back creaked and popped, clearly siding with Bruce in this argument. He huffed and got up to stretch. 

“Isn’t it your turn to get the coffee?” Tony wondered innocently enough. 

“It’s only ever Pietro’s turn,” Bruce pointed out, “after that it’s everyone for him- or her- self. But don’t worry,” Bruce added with a grin that was anything but sincere, “you’ve been seen in worse.” 

“You know what? I’m going to get myself some coffee—keyword: myself. I look _fantastic_ ,” Tony added emphatically, and he pulled a colorful, striped beanie down over his head to go with his colorful, striped zip-up as if to emphasize his point. “I’m a vision in these sweats.”

If his cocked eyebrow and skeptical once-over was anything to go by, Bruce wasn’t convinced. “You look like a sorority girl on a transatlantic flight.”

“Your—face looks like a sorority—oh, forget it,” Tony huffed lamely and stomped off in a dedicated beeline for his preferred coffee shop. 

His mood became his armor, and through the hallways and the park he cut across people scattered before him. Heads may have turned as he walked past, but so long as they cleared a path that was all that mattered. 

The line at Voltage wasn’t too bad, and the pace it moved at was even better. With nothing better to do, he pulled his phone out to thumb through his inbox to catch up on menial busywork when his phone buzzed with an incoming message. 

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 13:38 >**  
>  How’s your first day back? 

He almost pulled a muscle resisting the eye-roll, but somehow he managed. 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 13:38 >**  
>  Disaster. Fac collectively gagging on dick of some art historian with protractor 

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 13:40 >**  
>  I’ll be home at 7 w JD & ribs 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 13:41 >**  
>  You’re all that’s right in my world I don’t deserve you 

“Professor Stark?” a familiar voice asked from behind the counter, and Tony looked up see a former student grinning at him. “Damn, you took forever to come back. How was China?”

“Not sure, but Shanghai will be breathing better soon,” Tony said with a grin. “How’s poli sci-fi going?”

“Ugh, almost over,” Darcy groaned, “last year, _finally_.”

“Hang in there, kid. Nearly there,” Tony said with a quiet laugh, his grin slipping into a smile. 

“ _Almost_ ,” Darcy echoed with an emphatic sigh, and then perked up to get to business. “The usual, professor?”

“Four of them, biggest size you’ve got,” Tony agreed and dug out his wallet, but Darcy waved him off. 

“On the house.” 

Tony shook his head and stuffed his twenty into the tip jar instead. “See you around, Lewis.”

He shuffled along to the right to wait for his drinks only to find them already waiting for him in a little carrier with some oatmeal cookies. The first pleasant surprise of his day back! He picked up the carrier and waved his thanks to Darcy on his way out, and he was wriggling one cup free for his first taste when a well-dressed wall strode right into him. 

One of them yelped and the other one shouted as the thrust of impact flipped the carrier back on its owner. The cups became projectiles; the coffee, a searing barrage. Even between their grasping hands there was no saving the coffee (or Tony) from the tragedy of gravity. 

“I am so sorry,” he eventually heard the high velocity jackass blabbering over the burning pain clawing down his front and the sound of his own hissing breath. “I can’t believe—I didn’t see—I was lost—Dr. Stark, are you alright? Do you—do you need me to call an ambulance, a—paramedics?”

Tony stood, unmoving, for a long stretch of silence as he struggled to maintain his composure. He had managed to pinch the soaked fabric of his sweater and stretch it away from his body, which had seemed to help; thankfully most of the coffee had been caught up in his sweater rather than coming in direct, welting contact with his skin, and distantly he acknowledged how lucky that was. 

“—What can I do? Christ that must have been so hot—” the man continued rambling uncontrollably. “Not—oh shit no, not sexy or attractive, but _hot_ , temperature, scalding—okay let me, wait, I just got the number, it’s in my handbook, the nurse, there are nurses, this is a school—”

“Shut. Up,” Tony growled through the pain, and, careful of his soaked sweater and sweatpants, stepped around the other man with small, cautious steps. “Watch where you’re going, asshole.”

***

Later, when Tony got back to the lab, Bruce’s wry humor turned more serious when he gave Tony yet another once-over. 

“I stand corrected: that outfit still had room for ‘worse’.”

***

A short jog through campus helped. It always helped him through stressful days, and now after so many months away, running his familiar jogging trail felt like the final piece of coming home. 

Tony scrubbed at his face with his microfiber towel as he made his way over to the smaller but better window in his office, the one with the lucky cross-breeze. It took some solid effort to move those old hinges after all the disuse, but eventually he managed to muscle it open. He stood there for some time, fanning his shirt in the icy breeze and wiping at his face with the soaked hand towel. 

Even with all the disappointment and crap the day had brought, it really felt good to be home. Life in Shanghai hadn’t been the same. The humidity alone had been a nightmare. He had missed the four seasons of the northeast, even the heavy, grey clouds with their unidentifiable rain-hail downpours. He'd missed all of it, the over-worked students, the vicious Boston winds, the loud-mouthed, brutally honest locals. Just thinking about it all was enough to warm his heart. 

He stood in front of the window cooling off until the cool comfort turned too cold. With a firm pull, he shut the window and walked around to his desk to dig out the outfit he’d first worn that morning before he had switched into his comfortable lab gear. He only had one seminar left to teach that afternoon, and he was already thinking ahead to how he would go about recounting this whole screwball day to Pepper when an angry voice suddenly broke the peaceful silence of his office.

“Hey! Get out of there,” a man demanded, and Tony startled enough to slam his head up against his desk in alarm. “What are you doing—oh,” the man broke off with an uneven whisper when Tony straightened up to glare at him. “I—oh, _fuck_. I am so—I, I thought you were a student.”

“You,” Tony replied with a frown. “Aren’t you the guy from the park, with the coffee?”

“I—I’m, fuck—yes,” the man stammered, and it was really unfair how distracting his blush was, or how Tony’s gaze was drawn by the way the man’s full lips caught between his teeth in a nervous habit, because this asshat was clearly only to be firmly designated as a disaster to avoid at all cost. 

“I was trying to read the campus map, I’m so sorry—”

“Yeah, you said that. I asked you to shut up about it,” Tony reminded him. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to introduce myself,” he said when he finally found the right words, “I didn’t mean to—I thought you were a student, bent over—I mean, a student trying to get into your desk. You looked …younger.”

“Oh, goody,” Tony drawled. “So, who are you?” 

“Steve,” the man said, and he stepped forward in an instinctive gesture to offer his hand for a handshake. “Steve Rogers. It’s a pleasure to, to make your acquaintance on, uh ...on purpose.”

Tony looked him up and down, taking in the breadth of his firm shoulders, the narrow waist, the handsome face, until his eyes finally came to the man’s offered hand. All of Steve seemed too hopeful and sincere. 

Try as he might, Tony couldn’t hold on to the resentment and anger. Deep down he knew he’d already lost that war, so eventually he reached across to shake Steve’s hand firmly. 

“Of course you are,” he muttered. “Welcome to Boston, Rogers. Welcome to MIT.”

***

_Later the same day_

“Are you decent?” Pepper called as she let herself into Tony’s apartment, more to announce herself than anything. “I’ve got ribs, banana fritters, and two bottles of Jack.”

“Marry me!” Tony called back from the living room. When Pepper walked in moments later, he was still sprawled over his couch wearing pajama bottoms and a slathering of aloe vera across his chest and stomach. 

“Oh, god,” she said with a sympathetic wince, “I was hoping it was an exaggeration.”

“Not even a little,” Tony replied, but when he tried to sit up and reach for his discarded t-shirt, Pepper pushed him back down on the couch. “Really, Pepper?”

“Really, Tony,” she mimicked his dry monotone, and she stepped out of her heels to fold down comfortably on the rug beside Tony’s couch. “I’ve walked in on you doing much worse. Let that settle first. Has it blistered?”

“Just the one,” he said wryly, and Pepper leaned closer to see the small welt raised on his sternum. “I got real lucky, Pep.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” she sighed quietly. Then, with more energy and determination, she opened the first bottle of JD and handed it to Tony. “Alright: from the top.”

“I think Sharon might be in love,” Tony told her, “they hired him after I left, right? He’s this talent from some no-name institution out in Brooklyn. A SUNY probably. He’s just… re-imagining government buildings, as if that’s a career now. According to his number one fan, he first got on the map when he led reconstruction of the baroque Neues Palais and Chinesisches Haus in Potsdam. And,” he started to say, but he noticed Pepper had already pulled out her phone and was tapping away on the keyboard for photographs. 

“Oh, wow,” she said far too soon, and Tony frowned around the bottle he’d started nursing. “Don’t make that face, Tony, they’re beautiful. He’s done a great job.”

“It’s _baroque!_ You can’t go wrong, the more shit you stick to the walls the more people will praise you! It’s a stupid movement and a stupid building.”

“No, you’re absolutely right,” she agreed and patted his hand gently as if to apologize. “The work of a true vulgarian.”

“Most of his original work is in Germany, too, and,” he stalled there for a few beats, nearly pouting at the thought until he just couldn’t contain the truth anymore. 

“They’re really great Pepper,” he admitted quietly. “He’s got this Khaju perspective: his buildings are beautiful and functional, they’re well integrated in their surroundings, they offer community space...”

“Sounds disgusting,” Pepper commented sagely, and she took the bottle back from Tony to have a drink herself. 

“I know!” Tony complained, “Isn’t it? Apparently he insists the original projects he works on are in part devoted to the neighborhood community.”

“No wonder Germany loves him.”

“That’s what I said,” Tony agreed, if petulantly. “Anyway, while Sharon was waxing rhapsodic about his—his _body of work_ , Coulson walked into the lounge and told us some Emirati wants to hire Rogers to build his family a personal mansion in northern England and Fury’s about to blow a fuse because Rogers’ contract allows him to take time for non-university projects and he only came back from some bridge in Melbourne this week.”

“Now we really hate him,” Pepper decided, taking another long drink. “What a schmuck. Here, bite this,” she added and held up two ribs of meat for Tony to eat from while he rested on the couch. 

“Mm, thank you,” Tony hummed quietly and took the ribs without question, gobbling it up like a man who had spent the whole day without an appetite. “And _then_ , when he finally did come around to introduce himself—forget the whole ‘I spilled half a gallon of coffee on you’—you know what he tells me? He took one look at my ass and thought I was a student.”

Pepper blinked at him once, twice, until she finally had to ask for clarification. “Come again?”

“I was bent over in front of him,” 

“—you what?”

“No, not—not in—no, at my desk,” Tony stammered out, but Pepper just perked up more. “Damnit Pep, what? No: I was looking under my desk, and for no damn reason he just started shouting at me, thinking I’m a student.”

“...as in, he thought you were a student stealing or…?”

“I think so.”

“...that’s nice of him, isn’t it?”

“We hate him,” Tony reminded her. 

“What a self-righteous jerk,” Pepper agreed, “he googled your face but he didn’t bother googling your ass? How dare he only recognize you from one end.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at her and pointed the polished ribs accusingly at her. “Pepper.”

“If you don’t google, you can’t ogle,” she decided. “This all happened after a run, didn’t it?”

“Why?”

“Nothing,” she shrugged, and when she went to have some more of the whiskey Tony took the bottle from her. She let him swallow a few mouthfuls before admitting, “you look hot in your running gear. You think _he_ thought you look hot in your running gear?”

“Irrelevant.”

“Right, of course. You’re right,” Pepper agreed. “What about Bruce and Jane?”

“Jane’s swimming in the Kool-Aid,” Tony huffed, and finally he sat up and grabbed for his t-shirt to pull over his head. “He was the first thing she talked to me about, too. And _then_ ,” he suddenly remembered, “then she tried to convince me Fury dangled me to steal Rogers from Harvard. Me!”

“You ..realize California is what it is because of you, right?” Pepper asked rhetorically. “There are people who would cut off their own fingers to work with you.”

“Yeah, yeah, but—” 

“No, no buts, Tony,” Pepper interrupted, insisting on speaking over him. “Jane wouldn’t just say that, she’s a good friend. Maybe… maybe he’s interested in working with sustainable energy and communities?”

“So what if he is?” 

“I don’t know,” Pepper admitted sincerely. “Is he hot as sin?”

“ _Pepper._ Did you google him?”

“So he _is_ hot!”

“I didn’t say that—”

“I’m googling him right now,” she informed him even as she was pulling up the web browser on her phone. “From both ends, in case—oh. Oh.”

“What? What’s oh? I don’t like oh.”

“You’ll like this,” she turned the phone around and showed him Steve in tight, star-spangled spandex vest and shorts. “He’s an Ironman champion from 2009.”

“What the—do you—are you hooked up with the FBI? How did you—”

“If you think I’d be running the Eleanor Wallenberg Foundation and not know how to find what I need about—oh, and the other end is even better.”

“Damn, Pep, you’re such a lightweight,” Tony muttered, and made the executive decision to put the bottle away. When he came back to the couch, he crouched down and gently picked Pepper up from the floor and helped her settle against the armrest of the couch, pulling the blanket down to tuck her in. “So how about we _not_ stalk the person we've agreed to hate and just…. ribs and Bruce Campbell?”

“How’s that even a question? Gimme ribs,” she demanded, and caught the take-away bag as Tony tossed it to her. He took some time finding the TV remote and the paper towel roll, but soon he was huddled under the blanket with her and queueing up Bubba Ho-Tep.


	2. Week 2

_Monday, Feb. 13th 2017_

“Tony? Tony! Oh, hey Bruce,” Jane said brightly once she spotted Bruce nearby when she first wandered into their lab. “How’s that combustion reaction coming? My notes any help?”

“They were great, Jane, thanks,” Bruce answered, sincerely if a little distracted with his work. “Still working on the calibrations, but we’re getting there. We can’t tell if it’s the casing or the formula. Tony’s working on the hardware, so we’ll see.”

“Might be the casing,” Jane thought out loud, mostly to herself. “Should be fine so long as there’s no steel.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Tony said from a distance, and when Jane turned to see him walking up behind her, he was grinning. “What’s the good news, Foster? Was the Einstein-Rosen Bridge proposal funded?”

“Haven’t heard back yet,” Jane answered with a little shrug, trying to mask the tangle of excitement and anxiety she felt for her most recent research ambitions. “No, actually, this is about the assignments for my grad students. I need them all in the same sections as last year so they’ll have less distractions outside of research.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, Jane.”

“Thanks, Bruce,” she smiled at him, then turned back to Tony with an innocent expression both he and Bruce had learned to fear. Neither of them had denied that expression anything yet. “So, what do you say, Tony? A quick jog with a victory lap for Arthur?”

“Does that actually work?” Bruce wondered, finally intrigued enough to turn away from his microscope. 

“Sex sells, Banner,” Tony informed him at the same time as Jane smiled and said, “Hasn’t failed yet.”

“That’s funny,” Bruce said with a quiet snort of humor, then to Jane he said, “he always looks like a colorblind clown in lab.” 

Jane laughed easily and shamelessly, to Tony’s irritation. But when he glanced down at his bright green sweatpants and his plum-and-mustard striped longsleeves, even he couldn’t be bothered to defend himself. 

“What do you have against colorblind clowns?” he tried, somewhat delayed, but Bruce only rolled his eyes and went back to work. 

“So, are we on?” Jane interrupted with cautious hope, and who was Tony to say no to her? 

“Rocket casing render is on, I’ve got time to kill,” he said with a casual shrug. “He can expect me in thirty, thirty-five minutes.” 

“You’re the best! I’ll let him know,” Jane cheered and bounced up on the balls of her feet to kiss his cheek before racing off back to her own labs. 

“For the record,” Bruce drawled once the door shut behind Jane, “if you ever want to make me that happy, just clean out the fridge.”

*** 

“Obviously they don’t teach you shit at Harvard,” Tony concluded as he and Jane followed Bruce’s lead into Giorgio’s. “Everybody knows The Empire Strikes Back was Williams’ best work.”

“I’m partial to Indiana Jones, myself,” Bruce commented absently before turning his attention to the hostess and getting their table sorted. 

“Indi is great, but not as great as E.T.,” Jane insisted. “And even Jaws is more iconic than—”

“Than the Imperial March?” Tony interrupted her to point out, clearly unconvinced. “Suck a lemon, Foster: nothing beats the Empire Strikes Back.”

“Suck a dick, Stark,” she replied with a snort, “Empire Strikes Back has some great pieces, but it isn’t—”

“Both of you: shut up,” Bruce cut in when the hostess returned to take them to their table. “You sound like children. And, for the record: Jurassic Park _is_ his best work.”

“Is _not!_ ” Tony and Jane cried in unison, though they both trailed Bruce and the hostess without being asked. 

“You and all your records,” Tony muttered as they were seated, when Jane suddenly perked up. 

“Didn’t he compose Hook?” 

“ _Hook?_ That’s what you come back with, Hook?” Tony wondered, disbelieving. “We’re talking about masterpieces here.”

“How dare you—”

While their fiery squabble continued, Bruce managed to order water, stuffed eggplant and warm goat cheese for the table in a way that hopefully conveyed to the waiter that they were, despite evidence to the contrary, all mature adults. It wasn’t until the young man turned to walk away with their orders that Bruce finally rejoined them. 

“Why does everything turn into a gladiatorial battle with you two?” 

“She doesn’t respect Vader,” Tony accused at the same time as Jane said, “He lacks all common sense.”

“I’m an engineer, and a damn good one. I don’t need common sense.”

Jane snorted and gave his multi-purple Cosby sweater an unimpressed once-over. “What you need is a fashion sense, Professor Plum.”

“You—”

“Wait... guys?” Bruce interrupted haltingly, but he was speaking in a conspicuously lowered voice that piqued Jane and Tony’s curiosity and silenced them immediately. “Isn’t that Rogers with the Governor?”

“Steve is—” Jane said and was about to turn around to look when Bruce hissed in warning. 

“ _Don’t look_.” 

“...so how can we see if he’s with Baker?”

“Just ...turn in a way that isn’t turning,” Bruce explained, and fortunately the waiter came by then with their waters and to take their drink orders. Jane ordered stouts for herself and Tony, while Bruce opted for a cosmo, and they managed a moment’s worth of small talk until the waiter was out of earshot and they could freely gossip again. 

“Is it just Baker and Rogers?” Tony wanted to know, picking at the cutlery in the hopes of catching their reflection in the blade of the knife, momentarily forgetting that it wasn’t a 90’s crime drama and the cutlery at Giorgio’s wasn’t polished silver. 

“No, Goldberg’s there, too,” Bruce mumbled, making a passable attempt at not appearing to talk. “You know anything about this?”

Jane blinked at him when she realized Bruce was addressing her. “Me?”

“You’re across the hall from him,” Bruce reasoned, sensible as can be. 

“I’m a courtesy appointment: I see him twice a week!” she said in her own defense. “I know he’s curious about astrophysics, and that he’s a dog person, but he’s still trying to settle into his house before adopting.”

“And, he eats Bolognese without splattering,” Tony added to her list ruefully. 

“We can look?” Jane wondered, but both Bruce and Tony grabbed for each of her hands before she could turn and possibly give them away. Tony cleared his throat then and jerked his chin in the direction of his phone, where he had turned the camera around to let him view everything going on behind him. Quietly, Jane shuffled her chair a little closer to him and peeked. 

“He’s not even looking when he twirls,” she murmured, shaking her head in awe. “Bruce, you’re the geneticist—”

“No, I’m not,” he said with a long-suffering sigh, “and it isn’t.”

“Why not?” Tony asked, clearly on the same page as Jane. 

“Because it’s never evolution,” Bruce replied, dry as can be. “And if it was, we wouldn’t evolve to eat pasta.”

“I swear he’s got the most perfect teeth,” Tony complained. “It’s a tomato based sauce: how are they so white?”

“How are you looking at his teeth when he’s got those shoulders?” Jane wondered, then couldn't help but point out, “They’re almost as impressive as Thor’s.”

“—okay, if we’re going to talk about specimens of advanced human evolution,” Bruce started at the first mention of Thor, but Tony talked over him. 

“Because his stupid perfect teeth sit in his stupid perfect smile in the middle of his stupid perfect face. My grandpa had that haircut,” Tony felt the need to point out, because it still astounded him. “How is he pulling it off as if it’s fashionable?”

“He puts the class in classic,” Jane smiled up at him, and her smile grew into a grin at Tony’s flat stare. “Did we hit a nerve?”

Bruce smirked wryly, skimming the menu while still keeping an eye on both his friends and the table of intrigue several yards away. “He’s probably just upset Rogers has more style on his left wrist than Tony has on his entire person.”

“That is a nice watch,” Jane agreed after a moment of consideration. “Expensive, but tasteful.”

“Oh, to hell with you both,” Tony groused, but his complaints were dropped when Bruce suddenly sat up more stiffly. 

“He’s looking our—shit,” he murmured without really moving his lips, politely returning Steve’s smile from a few tables away. 

“What’s he doing?”

“Nothing, waiter just brought them drinks, they’re just talking. Wait. No,” Bruce suddenly hissed, and Tony turned his phone over before Bruce even had to tell him. “Fuck, he’s coming over. Act natural.” 

“You know what I wouldn’t mind in my lab?” Jane changed their conversation topic seamlessly, apropos of nothing. “Board games. I think my students would benefit from spending the downtime socializing as opposed to playing with—Hi, Steve!”

“Hi Jane,” he smiled in answer, then a little less casually he acknowledged Tony and Bruce. “Dr. Stark, Dr. Banner. How are you all doing?”

“Unwinding,” Bruce said, when it became obvious Tony wasn’t about to volunteer anything. “It’s been a long day. You’re grabbing lunch with the Governor?”

“Oh,” Steve said with a shrug. “Yeah, he’s—they want a consultant for renovations on the capitol, and they heard I was local. It’s just a courtesy.”

“Ah. Yes, of course,” Bruce agreed, mirroring Steve’s easy shrug. “Happens to me all the time.”

“The last time a politician talked to you, you nearly made him cry,” Tony reminded him, though he smirked proudly. But Bruce frowned at the memory, personally offended by that level of incompetence. 

“One more jackass tells me global warming is a diversion designed by the liberal-left and I’ll—I’ll—”

“Breathe,” Tony said gently, “he’s not worth it.”

“We won’t keep you from your meeting,” Jane told Steve then to draw his attention away from where Tony was helping Bruce calm down. “It was great to see you! I’ll see you in my lecture soon, right?”

Steve smiled happily at her question, beaming in delight. “Oh! Yes—I’ve freed up my Tuesday afternoons. Would next week be too soon?” 

“Not at all; their next exam isn’t for four weeks,” she said, “next week we’re talking about Kepler’s laws and motion.”

“I’ll be sure to read up then,” he promised, mostly to remind himself. “There was a moment in my life when I thought I understood the equation for dynamic area velocity, but by the time I got sober I’d lost it.”

Tony blinked up at Steve as his words sunk in, acknowledging him for the first time. “You think about physics when you’re drunk?”

“I, well,” Steve stammered at first, and he ducked his head momentarily before looking up at Tony again with a smile. “Advanced math and physics was intimidating for me, at first. I used to need a couple shots before I could start my homework.”

“So you would solve for transversal acceleration…. drunk.”

“It takes more than a few shots to get me drunk,” Steve confessed, then with another little shrug added, “but I was less concerned about making mistakes.”

Tony continued to stare at Steve as if waiting for the punchline, or for Steve to cry ‘psych!’ in his face. After enough drawn-out silence, Bruce had pity on them all. 

“Always good to see you, Steve,” he said, “if you’re visiting Jane, why don't you come by our lab sometime? We’re working on fuel cells and building rockets.”

“Building _rockets?_ ” 

“Tony’s building the rocket,” Bruce clarified with an innocent smile, “and most of the fuel cells—I’m just helping.”

“You’re—wait,” Steve said quietly as he put two and two together, and he looked down at Tony in unmasked awe. “Are you working on a green rocket engine?”

“Hopefully,” Tony said wryly, “prototype should be ready in two weeks.”

“Damn,” Steve breathed, then immediately blushed fiercely at his language. “—I mean, I, I knew—I’d heard that you were a—”

“Genius?” Tony supplied when Steve seemed at a loss for words. 

“Yes,” Steve agreed in a breath of relief. “I’d love to see what you’re working on.”

“Yeah, well. I guess you’re invited now,” Tony shrugged, “just don’t wear anything flammable, and close-toed shoes.”

“That last one is mostly in case Tony drops something,” Bruce added. 

“Got it,” Steve said like it was a promise. “It’s good to see you. I’ll let you get back to your lunch, I’ll catch up with you soon.”

They all politely waved and said goodbye with varying degrees of sincerity, and it wasn’t until Steve safely out of earshot that Tony turned to glare at Bruce. 

“What the hell was that?” he demanded. “You invited Mr. Perfect to our lab?”

“Professor Perfect,” Bruce corrected innocently enough. “He’s clearly impressed and interested. Right, Jane?”

“It is pretty obvious,” she agreed. “You don’t see it, Tony?”

“Look, I don’t care if Plump Pecs R Us busts his nuts over the Theory of Relativity every night—”

“That’s… disturbingly specific, Tony,” Bruce interrupted, if mildly. “Look, all I’m saying is maybe give him a chance? It’s not his fault he’s perfect.”

“You’ve probably never felt intimidated before,” Jane added in a soothing voice. Tony glowered at the implication, but she didn’t let him interrupt her. “No, don’t with that face; it’s okay. It’s a shit feeling, we get it. But he’s not being a jerk about it.”

“I’m not _intimidated_ ,” Tony growled, picking up steam, except whatever argument was to follow never came to be. Little by little, the fight left him, and soon he cradled his head in his hands and muffled a low, pathetic whine. “...fucking Christ.”

“Just be yourself, Tony,” Jane said gently. “I promise, you as yourself are enough.”

***

_Saturday, Feb. 18th 2017_

“Well?” Pepper asked between deep drinks of water. “Has he been by yet?”

“Not yet,” Tony muttered as he swallowed his own mouthful, and he scrubbed at his face with a towel to mop up the sweat on his face and in his hair. “You’d probably hear Wanda’s heart burst from across town immediately if he did; I’m fairly sure she’s in love with him.”

“If it was possible to be in love with a man only for his shoulders, back, and ass, I’d be in love with him, too,” Pepper confessed, then immediately ducked a broad swipe of Tony’s tennis racket as he tried to smack the net at her face. “Oh, please—you think you can lie to me, Tony Stark?”

“Then he should have been a damn actor,” Tony groused, “but did he have to be intelligent, too?”

“Actors are intelligent, too,” Pepper said with a certainty that meant she wouldn’t accept any arguments to the contrary. “Like any demographic there’s variation. But, think of John Lithgow.”

“He is not an actor, he is a gift,” Tony countered, but he didn’t push it any further. Slowly, leisurely, they made their way from the courts and back through the gym to return their towels. “You didn’t see him, Pepper. He ate spaghetti without slurping—he’s charming, he’s gorgeous, he’s—he does differential calculus when he’s drunk!”

“Ugh. Unforgivable. So gross,” Pepper agreed with a frown. “As if we needed more reasons to hate him.”

“Right?” Tony cried with a sudden relief. “And then he dresses so well—he looks like he just walked off the cover of GQ, it’s so—”

“Messed up?” Pepper guessed as she bundled up her racket with the rest of her tennis gear, and Tony huffed in despairing agreement. “No academic should have those thighs, or those shoulders. And, ironically, he looks more obscene in sweats and a t-shirt than those Ironman tights.”

Tony frowned a little at Pepper’s odd words and stopped talking for a moment. “...what are you talking about?”

“You know, sweats, white t-shirt,” Pepper repeated, and with a pointed look indicated for Tony to look at something behind him. “He’s coming this way.”

Sure enough, Steve, clearly well into his workout, was walking up the hall towards them. The soaked white t-shirt clung to his body and left little to the imagination, while his sweats were making a valiant effort to appear casually relaxed around his thighs. Except, by the goofy smile on his face he seemed entirely unaware of the heartbreaking sight he so effortlessly made. 

“Dr. Stark! Hi,” he said with a big smile, only mildly out of breath. “I was just thinking of you.”

“You were?” Tony asked with a clear tone of skepticism, and beside him, Pepper’s gaze shamelessly drifted down Steve’s body. “What can I do for you, Rogers?”

“You can let him call you Tony, Tony,” Pepper interrupted, though it took her a minute to wipe the smirk off her face and look half as strict as she had just sounded. “Hi, Steve, my name is Pepper. I’m Tony’s friend; I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Good things, I hope. It’s a pleasure,” Steve said with a bashful smile, before glancing back at Tony. “I—well, actually, it’s just—I’m working on a new proposal, it’s for a community center and women’s shelter in Kenya. The heat in the building is a big problem for me. I would appreciate your help—if you’re not too, uh, too busy?”

Despite himself, Tony couldn’t help but perk up. “A proposal? For whom?”

“Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They’re ready to go, but I don’t—I believe the heat issue can be improved, I just don’t know how. I’d really appreciate your input.” 

“They’re ready to go?” Tony asked, glancing at Pepper with a look she knew meant he was secretly pleased about something. “I thought you were working on the proposal.”

“It’s a formality,” Steve said, and he even sighed at the thought while Tony tried not to stare. “Melinda and I talked about it years ago when I was working in Nigeria, we met at this event for promotion and access to women’s healthcare, and they’ve been pushing this for years. I don’t know why they think taking a faculty position means I have downtime, but—”

“Fine, sure,” Tony cut in, suddenly very uncomfortable with the whole conversation. “We have reservations so just send what you’ve got and I’ll take a look—”

“It’s just brunch,” Pepper said before Tony could brush Steve off. “It wouldn’t be difficult to add one more seat at our table, would it Tony?”

“But, I—we,” Tony choked out in his attempts to object, until finally he managed a vague, “but I wanted to talk to you about something private, Pepper, it’s—this can wait until Monday, can’t it, Rogers?”

“Sure, of course,” Steve promised, smiling easily. “I wouldn’t expect you to work on a weekend on my project.”

“Fine, good, great. Then, we’ll be in touch.”

***

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 22:07 >**  
>  This motherfucker.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 22:10 >**  
>  I was wondering why you were playing The Doors.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 22:11 >**  
>  That good? 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 22:11 >**  
>  It’s perfect. 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 22:12 >**  
>  “Bill & Mel are begging me to work with them” made me want to punch him in his perfect teeth but ffs he deserves this.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 22:15 >**  
>  Thought so.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 22:15 >**  
>  You know he likes you, don’t you? 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 22:18 >**  
>  Who asked you

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 22:20 >**  
>  Whatever you say, Tony. Help him make it better. 

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 22:26 >**  
>  I’m Tony Stark. That’s what I do.

***


	3. Week 3

_Friday, April 21th 2017_

“BOOK?!” 

Pepper looked up from her left hand at the sudden shout from across the hall. It wasn’t common for Tony to randomly start yelling, especially not at inanimate objects so early in the evening. She sat still, waiting to see if the outburst would be continuing while she blew on her drying nail polish. 

“What fucking book? When the—who does this—WHEN did he have time to write a fucking book!”

With a slow shake of her head, Pepper picked up her nail polish and grabbed a bottle of wine off the rack in the kitchen, and made her way across the hall. She tucked the bottle under her arm to unlock Tony’s door with her own key.

She found him in pajamas and his glasses, curled up on the couch between two tablets and a notebook, eating Captain Crunch out of a generous mixing bowl. 

“You sure live up to your reputation, Stark,” she said with remarkable sincerity. 

“Pepper, I love you, I need your help,” he replied in one breath, and his expression and his voice were so tired and drawn that Pepper’s pleasant amusement turned to clear concern within moments. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked before Tony felt the need to justify himself. 

“It’s—you know who, it’s,” he trailed off in a strangled voice, then dug a little into the cushions for the remote he had just thrown away after shutting the TV off. He flicked on the TV again and rewound the DVR to the start of some daytime news program Pepper couldn’t recognize. Steve was the guest, and he was seated in a plush, red chair opposite a pleasant, friendly host who was currently frozen in the middle of handing him a small gift bag. 

“What is this, Good Morning America?”

“Jane said Steve did an interview last week,” Tony answered instead, by way of explanation. “I thought… I mean. I was curious—don’t laugh, Pepper.”

“Not even a little,” she promised, and though she was smiling she did it kindly, and without any hint of laughter. “I need to see it, but first I’m going to need some of this.”

She held up the bottle of pinot noir, and Tony nodded with some off-hand comment about helping herself. It only took moments for Pepper to locate the glasses, and Tony had opened up space next to himself on the couch for her to get settled by the time she came back. Bundled up in an Afghan throw that had once belonged on her own couch (and somehow mysteriously migrated to Tony’s apartment) and a glass of wine in her hands, she nudged Tony to start the recording.

> “—from us and from a previous guest on the show, John Knoll,” the host was saying. “You know, while he was here he also attributed you and your work to some of the inspiration for his Academy Award winning design in—”
> 
> “No, wait—no, I can’t—that’s a rumor and I,” Steve was briefly overwhelmed by the disappointment heard from the audience, and he couldn’t help a helpless laugh. “No, it—I mean, it’s incredibly flattering and maybe I should let it slide, but that’s not fair. John and his team are great, and they’re so talented; what he’s referring to are just… scribbles. Scribbled drawings and undirected brainstorming over a few poker games, it’s hardly anything to write home about.”
> 
> “It seems to have left an impression on him. And you know, those casual conversations, that’s often where we find inspiration.”
> 
> “That is… that is true. In fact, I’ve found that to be the most rewarding aspect of academia,” Steve admitted with a thoughtful smile. “Especially in my recent projects, talking things over with innovative leaders such as Dr. Stark, or Dr. Bruce Banner, whose work on the treatment and purification of both soil and water has been—has been critical to developing resources and opportunities for small-scale farming in Nigeria—it’s the same organization with whom I developed a, a series of schools. The intention there was to help them prepare for a life suited to their environment, and not… well, what we might consider an appropriate education. Shakespeare is great, but Hamlet won’t help these children prepare for a more secure life.”
> 
> The interviewer laughed amiably. “One might argue Shakespeare wouldn’t help children in our own neighborhood prepare for a better life!”
> 
> “I, I—I, um, plead the Fifth,” Steve stammered, though clearly trying not to laugh. “That’s terrible, I’m in—I’ve been frustrated for a long time about how NGOs and iNGOs handle education opportunities for young people in underdeveloped parts of the world, where you find poverty reproduced in generation after generation. It’s—you know, I’ve been vocal about that as much as I have been vocal about the disservice of abstinence-only NGOs, but I’ve gotta watch what I say now that I’m a teacher, and to some of the greatest young minds of our country.”
> 
> “It doesn’t seem like you need to worry,” the interviewer said with a mischievous smile. “Your students appear to have taken quite a liking to you.”
> 
> Steve narrowed his eyes in suspicion, clearly aware enough to know this was some kind of set-up, though without any idea of what that might be. “Why do you say that?”
> 
> “Well,” the interviewer drawled, “some of our staff interns are currently attending graduate and even undergraduate classes, and they were aware of this website—have you heard of it? Draw my professor dot com.”
> 
> Steve barked a laugh just as the first photo was put up on the big screen behind them.
> 
> “Oh, that’s—that’s not bad,” Steve smiled in relief. “You had me there, for a minute. But this is nice—thank you. If you see this, thank you to whoever drew this.”
> 
> “It is quite good; we thought we’d start you on an easy one. Here’s another...”
> 
> “Oh, god,” he cried, choking on his own laughter. “I do—damn, but I do say that. A lot. Because they are!”
> 
> “Then what about this?”
> 
> “Oh, no,” Steve groaned even as he laughed. “I—I always tell my students, if you have an idea, jot it down anywhere you can. My first original building—a convenience store outside Nuremberg, it’s—I mean, it’s pretty unremarkable, but it’s a building I’m proud of, and that was first realized with some scribbles on the back of an envelope.”
> 
> “That’s a good lesson,” the interviewer agreed. “But here, here’s the last one… How did this fit into your lesson plan?”
> 
> The drawing and the quote caught Steve completely off guard, and he all but howled with laughter.
> 
> “Explain that, sir!” the interviewer challenged with a laugh of her own.
> 
> “That—that is so, _so_ out of context! I, ah,” Steve struggled to talk and laugh at the same time, and he finally cleared his throat to speak properly. “I enjoy long-distance running, and I—IPAs and bananas are my post-run, um, treat.”
> 
> “Then I wouldn’t worry too much about your place in the department,” the interviewer concluded with a kind smile. “The faculty is one of the best in the world—voted the best architectural department in the world for the third year in a row, in fact, but you hold your own among them.”
> 
> “It is the faculty that drew me there, in the end,” Steve agreed. “To collaborate with the likes of Dr. Banner, and then—to have a chance to speak with Dr. Stark, that… what can I say? Dr. Stark is… one of the most inspired and innovative minds of our time, or, at least that I have met. I can only aspire to be as clever as him, he… he’s wonderful. Really wonderful. An inspiration and, uh, a great person to have around to challenge you. You can’t—you can’t coast on mediocre work if you’re on the same faculty as, as Professor Stark.”
> 
> “And you have just published a new book with such insights on the various benefits and pitfalls of collaborations and group efforts, _A Career by Design_ ...”

Tony shut off the recording.

"That..." Pepper murmured, still taken aback, "was unexpected."

Tony whined around his angry chewing, which only seemed to agitate Pepper. " _That's_ what you were yelling about?"

"That's so twenty minutes ago, just—please, Pepper, what do I do?"

"What do you mean, what do you do?" she repeated slowly. "Tony, he just confessed his love for you on national daytime TV. What do you need, a joint introduction by Jon Stewart and Dave Bautista?"

"I wouldn't say no to tha—"

"You are a good man, Tony Stark," she cut in, adamant in her conviction. "You're a good man, and you're going to respond to him like an adult. Which means you will not do what?"

"Avoid him," Tony mumbled into the big bowl of mostly-soggy cereal in his lap. "But it's—Pepper, I've barely talked to him. He's been so busy, and I've been so busy, I only really see him in the monthly faculty meetings."

But Pepper was ignoring his excuses, and she was already busy thumbing through the apps on Tony's phone. "We are going to order you his book right now," she said while she did exactly that. "You are going to read it, and then you're going visit him in his office to congratulate him on his most recent publication."

"But we're about to start testing the rocket any week now—" 

"No! Tony," she paused briefly to calm herself, then in a more collected voice she said, "there will always be the next rocket, or the next project. This is not a man who will wait around forever. He's already waited for months!" 

With a wry twist of his lips, Tony finally nodded his agreement. 

"Just... alright, fine. But get the one-day delivery."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork is not mine, and taken directly from [drawmyprofessor.com](http://www.drawyourprofessor.com/). All credit goes to the artists, whoever they are; links to original work, in order of appearance: [(1)](http://www.drawyourprofessor.com/prof.php?prof=831165) [(2)](http://www.drawyourprofessor.com/prof.php?prof=548131) [ (3)](http://www.drawyourprofessor.com/prof.php?prof=548511) [(4)](http://www.drawyourprofessor.com/prof.php?prof=807363)


	4. Week 4

_Friday, May 12th 2017_

“What’s the fucking point of having graduate students if you can’t exploit them.“

“Tony, you’re not going to waste our only phone call to blackmail some broke kid into putting up our bail money,” Bruce heaved the sigh of a man who had spent too much time with a Stark (any Stark; take your pick, though their wiles only worsened with age).

“It’s _mentorship_ hours, and just think about the reference letter they’d get!” Tony pointed out, “they could spend the last years of their program knowing they’ve got us by the balls; it’s as good as job security.”

Bruce stared at him for an unsettling length of time, then glanced around the cell they’d been thrown in along with all the other offenders of the evening. There was an old man with four teeth in a GRAB HER BY THE PUSSY hoodie sleeping across most of their bench, and the little puddle of pale yellow dribble was creeping ever closer to Bruce’s jeans. He swallowed down a few choice words about oral hygiene and finally gave in.

“Fine. Call—call Wanda. She can keep a secret.”

“Bruce, I could kiss you—” Tony breathed and shot off the bench to plaster himself to the bars and wave for the attention of an attending officer. “Phone call—we would like to make our remaining phone call.”

The man trundled over in his own time and punched in the code for the cell door. He grabbed Tony by the arm and led him to the phone across the hall. “Make it quick,“ he grunted and sat down on a nearby bench, supervising his call with a side of donut holes.

Tony dropped the quarters into the old relic and started to punch in the numbers. He got through the first six numbers before realizing that it was 2017 and people didn’t memorize numbers anymore and shit, were they fucked or what?

“Bruce? What’s Wanda’s extension?”

Bruce dropped his head into his hands in his dismay and groaned. “You don’t know your own student’s number?”

“Bruce, we’re lucky I know _my_ number,” Tony pointed out before another thought came to the fore. “She’s your student, too! What’s your excuse?”

Bruce rolled his eyes and sighed, but he was quiet for a little while as he tried to remember. “5430? 5431?”

“She didn’t have three odd numbers,” Tony hummed to himself, and he punched in Bruce’s first guess.

“No, wait!“ Bruce shouted over the sound of the ringing of the phone. “5340!”

Tony was still whining when their last ditch phone call clicked and connected.

“This is Steve Rogers,” a polite voice answered on the other end.

“Oh, fuck you,” Tony moaned, “you’re too perfect for this.”

There was a long pause from Steve’s end, before he dared to speak. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hi,” Tony tried again, making himself smile broadly so that it might translate in his voice. “This is Tony, Tony Stark—we don’t talk much and I can be kind of a stiff jerk person but you know me, we’re, um, on the same faculty, you spilled half a gallon of coffee on me on your first day? And you, you publicly said very nice things about me that one time? I sit behind you during our department meetings and you smell like magnolias—well, I mean, some form of …flora, I think, you know, it could be a non-pollenating—you know, no, I’m in jail and I need to be bailed out. Bruce is here too. 4,500 dollars. Each. Hurry, we’re surrounded by Republicans.”

*** 

Hours later, once the paperwork had been signed, processed, and their belongings returned to them, Tony and Bruce emerged to find Steve waiting for them. 

Well, waiting in the broad sense of the word. 

“I wouldn’t have thought it’d be physically possible,” Bruce noted after a long silence where he and Tony had both stared at Steve with their heads on a slight tilt, trying to understand how it was that the mountain of a man folded into a rickety old chair comfortably enough to sleep.

Tony huffed in a distant echo of amusement, too tired by that point to express any emotion convincingly. He walked to where Steve sat, crumbled and awkward but pleasantly asleep, and gently patted his firm shoulder. 

The man didn’t startle or make a noise at being touched, but he opened his eyes to see who had touched him. When he saw Tony’s face, he smiled in relief. 

“Thank god,” he murmured, his voice hoarse from sleep, and gracefully he came to his feet to look Tony over. “Are you alright?” He acknowledged Bruce with a smile and a nod, and addressed his second question more explicitly to them both. “They didn’t bother or, or hurt you did they?”

“We’re fine,” Bruce started to say, but Steve was already busy snatching up a reusable grocery bag from under the chair he’d been sleeping in. 

“I thought you might be hungry,” Steve said as he dug around in the bag, and soon he held out a bottle of water each for Bruce and Tony, followed by pesto caprese sandwiches on rustic bread with thick slices of mozzarella and tomato. He seemed to just now realize his possible mistake though, and with a bashful shrug at Bruce he said, “I—I know you’re vegetarian, but I, I didn’t know if you were vegan?”

“I’m not,” Bruce replied and he accepted the sandwich with a smile. “That’s thoughtful of you, Steve.”

“Don’t mention it,” he returned the smile with relief. “Are you free to go? I’m parked right outside.”

“Yeah,” Tony was saying, but Bruce sat down in a chair not unlike the one Steve had been dozing in earlier, and he waved his phone at them as if that explained his behavior. 

“Called Betty. She’s on her way.”

“I don’t mind—” Steve started to say, but Bruce waved him off. 

“Trust me, it’s for the best.”

Tony huffed in amusement again, and patted Steve gently on the chest to get his attention. “Come on. Let him get his fantasy rescue.”

“Hu—OH! Oh,” Steve stammered to say, then he nodding quickly as if this was totally normal and this wasn’t the most personal conversation of theirs he’d ever been included in. “Yes, sure, yeah. I’ll see you uh, Monday. Have a good weekend.”

“I will,” Bruce promised, and he closed his eyes to settle in in the chair for his wait. 

Without another word, Steve turned to follow Tony out of the station. Neither of them said anything, and Steve turned his car on with the key fob before Tony even had to ask which car was his. 

(Of course it was a damn Prius.)

Tony buckled into the passenger seat without thinking, and soon his head thudded against the window, the energy leaving him at an accelerated rate now that the worst of the night was behind him. 

“Want to put in your address?” Steve said gently, and when Tony picked his head up to look at him the first thing he noticed was Steve offering him his phone with Google Maps opened up. He hummed to himself as if only now realizing Steve didn’t know where he lived, and it only took two tries to get his address typed in with his sleep-clumsy fingers. 

“Thanks,” Steve said when he took the phone back and started the navigation, and soon they were pulling out into the sparse traffic of the night. The thirty minute drive passed mostly in silence, with intermittent interruptions from the navigation. It wasn’t until Steve pulled off the highway that Tony finally spoke. 

“Are you for real?” he mumbled into the window, and after a beat he picked his head up with considerable effort to look at Steve. “I can’t figure it out.”

Steve blinked a little in confusion before he glanced away from the road to meet Tony’s eyes for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“You—you’re fucking perfect,” Tony said quietly, his words slurring a little clumsily in his exhaustion. “You are—everything by your own merits, from some community college and with no network—you understand how unlikely that is? And still you’re—you’re _you_ , you make art come to life and you’re—with your perfect teeth and your spaghetti and your, your pecs and, and—this _sandwich_.”

“I,” Steve stuttered, blindsided by Tony’s sudden and rambling confession. “I—is, is the sandwich not—”

“The fucking sandwich is beautiful, Steve!” Tony snapped. “It’s perfect. It should be photographed, not eaten.”

Steve stared ahead for several long beats trying to digest what Tony said, but he didn’t really have much time to think anything over before Tony seemed to realize all that he had said. 

“ _Fuck_ fuck fuck,” Tony muttered, and he doubled over to press his forehead against his knees, trying and failing to muffle a groan. “Can—is there any chance you’ll forget what I just—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupted him, not unkindly. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I… don’t know,” Tony admitted after a few moments of thinking, straightening up in his seat. “We’ve been finishing the rocket, it’s—god, Steve, it _worked_ , it worked so fucking well, just—um, too well.”

“Nobody got hurt,” Steve reminded him, “that’s the important thing.”

Tony levelled a flat look at Steve and in a dry, unimpressed tone said, “We shot a seven foot rocket into a billboard fifteen miles from our calculated target.”

“At what—at full thrust capacity?”

“ _Twelve percent_ ,” Tony enunciated emphatically, as if needing Steve to understand the significance of their finding. 

“Okay, you can tell me what that actually means after you’ve slept,” Steve replied, and he pulled up to the curb in front of Tony’s brownstone. He left the car where it was to walk Tony to his door and make sure he got into his apartment okay. It took some fumbling, Tony finally got the right keys in hand and clumsily wrestled his door open. 

“Are you going to be alright?” Steve asked as steadily and patiently as he could. Tony staggered and swayed, but he nodded in reply and muttered something about bed before shutting the door in Steve’s face. 

***

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 05:53 >**  
>  Proud m such a idiot

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 05:53 >**  
>  I old bin svegtkng to. Ha face

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 05:54 >**  
>  He’s inclfdd and j gold bum go VHS c s and bd Max’s md XNsich and he’s cu King perfe f and he diss for snore

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 06:15 >**  
>  I agree. You’re an idiot.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 06:15 >**  
>  Brunch at noon?

***

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 06:28 >**  
>  Home. 

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 06:32 >**  
> 

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 06:32 >**  
>  Who in pluperfect hell makes sandwiches like this?

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 06:33 >**  
>  I bet he makes his own bread. And pesto.

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 06:47 >**  
>  Remind me to get his recipes.

***

_Saturday, May 13th 2017_

“Pepper, please,” Tony picked up again between bites of his smoked salmon eggs Benedict, “you know how many people live near airports? And how few of them have opportunities to improve their circum—”

“No, Tony, and right now I don’t care,” Pepper interrupted him, and she reached across their table to try to pin his hands down; if you controlled his hands, you controlled the conversation, and Tony quickly dropped his cutlery to put his hands in his lap. 

“But it’s _important_ , Pepper.”

“And you’re not?” 

Tony frowned at her, but he had no counter argument. For a moment he almost forgot that she was out for his hands and reached for peach wedge on his plate, and she nearly caught him. 

“Tony, I mean it,” she warned him in a low voice he didn't often hear. “I love you, but I’m starting to find grays—I’m only 32, it's too early for—”

“You’re not seeing anyone either, you know.”

“I don’t need you to _see someone_ , Tony! But this guy,” she added a little more gently, “Steve? He’s thoughtful, he’s hardworking, he’s a leader in his field, he’s—he’s pushing your buttons! He challenges you. You’d never forgive yourself if you let him get away, and you know it.”

“I,” Tony mumbled at first, then shrugged a little, a helpless gesture. “He… could have just left us there at the jail. Let us call a cab. It took hours to get through processing.”

“He’s a good man, Tony. He deserves the same in return.”

He looked up at her then, and despite the wary discomfort, Tony could only agree. But if he had any other thoughts to share on the subject, nothing seemed forthcoming, and he simply sat there in silence for a while, staring down at his plate of cooling eggs Benedict. Surprisingly, the toasted muffin still seemed quite firm and crisp despite the yolk pooling all around it, and Tony was starting to wonder when Pepper might go back to eating her own food again so his hands might be safe when his phone suddenly vibrated on the table.

> **RECEIVED FROM UNKNOWN NUMBER (+718 212 8766) @ 12:34 >**  
>  Hey Tony, it’s Steve. How are you feeling?

“Is it him?” she asked, then immediately rolled her eyes at herself. “No, wait, of course it is. Why else would you be trying _not_ to smile.”

“I don’t think he knows how perfect he is, Pep,” Tony finally gave in and grinned, slowly shaking his head at the phone. “He just _is_.”

“Anthony Edward Stark, are you going to let the man hang or are you going to answer him?” she demanded—then almost immediately after, she added, “Or do you need me to do it?”

“No, I can—”

“Are you sure? Because I can do it,” she insisted now, with a dangerous glint in her eye. “I am really good at making you sound—”

“He’s mine! No! Get your own,” Tony yelped and he twisted away from her each time she reached for his phone, and he rushed to type out a response before Pepper could wrest a hold of his phone.

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 12:36 >**  
>  Much improved. Thank you for rescue yesterday, Steve. End of semester is shit, but got time for coffee on M?

“Well?” Pepper demanded with obvious impatience when Tony ever so obviously, ever so triumphantly, pressed Send.

“See for yourself,” he challenged in return now that it was finally done, and he tossed the phone across the table for her. She caught it easily and skimmed the brief exchange. 

“You did it!” she enthused proudly, and instinctively she threw up her hand for a most satisfying high five. “Where will—oh, he ans...” she trailed off into silence moments after seeing the message that had just come in, then slanted her eyes at Tony with renewed interest. 

Tony blinked at her abrupt change of expression, and he leaned her way in an effort to sneak a peek at the phone. “What? Did he say something?” 

“What kind of non-conversation conversations have you had with this young man, Tony?”

Before Tony had a chance to wonder why she was now calling Steve ‘young man,’ she returned his phone to him with the message pulled up.

> **RECEIVED FROM UNKNOWN NUMBER (+718 212 8766) @ 12:37 >**  
>  Glad to hear you’re feeling better. Monday after 2PM is good. Look forward to learning about your rocket.

“You don’t think he...”

“Yes,” Pepper said with unequivocal confidence. “Yes, I think he is.”

“But… that’s something _I_ would say,” Tony mumbled, too focused re-reading the brief text to really answer Pepper too clearly. “He’s too good for that.”

“No, he isn’t,” Pepper sing-songed, “he clearly isn’t.”

Tony frowned at her words, then with a determined expression started composing a reply.

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 12:41 >**  
>  Only if you can multitask == can you drink coffee & listen? Am I safe?

The reply was immediate.

> **RECEIVED FROM UNKNOWN NUMBER (+718 212 8766) @ 12:41 >**  
>  Promise I won’t spill a drop.

Tony stared at the screen in reverent silence for some time before he softly murmured, “Pepper?”

“Yes, Tony?”

“I think I’m in love.”

“I know.”


	5. Week 5

_Monday, May 15th 2017_

When Tony arrived at the Thinking Cup on Hanover, Steve was waiting for him near the door. 

“Hey,” Tony said and slowed down to an awkward stand-still, not sure if he should wave, hug, shake, or high-five the man. “Have you been waiting long?”

“No, I’ve been wandering the area,” Steve answered with a smile, and he turned to gesture the general direction behind him. “Did you know the Freedom Trail comes through here?”

“Yeah, that’s the red line,” Tony said and scraped his shoe along the line painted along the center of the pavement. “When you’re drunk, the line is the only thing keeping you going. And right around here, you’re already ten, eleven stops in, you’re pretty far gone, but you still remember Modern and...”

Steve blinked as Tony’s story trailed off, and although it was already confusing, he was pretty sure there was more to come. “Tony?” he prompted, and glanced over his shoulder again to follow Tony’s inexplicable stare. 

“There’s no line,” Tony whispered in a distant voice, as if hypnotized. “There’s no—come on!” 

With a sudden, determined grip of Steve’s shirt, Tony ran across the street (to the sound of only one set of squealing tires and a blaring horn; Steve barely managed to wave his apology at the livid driver as his feet stuttered at a forced gallop after Tony’s lead) straight into Modern Pastry and the two-person line. 

“This is a fucking _miracle_ ,” Tony was telling him with wild enthusiasm, “you don’t und—the line is always out the door, can I ju—Hi, hello,” Tony smiled warmly at the young woman offering to help him from behind the counter, “A dozen cannolis to go.”

“A _dozen?_ ”

Tony’s mouth curled downward ruefully, and he soon nodded in agreement to Steve’s incredulity. “No, you’re right—better make it two dozen.”

Steve looked glanced at the woman helping them as if she might be in on this joke, but she went along with it as if everything was normal. “Tony, what are we doing with two dozen cannoli?”

“...I mean, I only think there is one thing to do with cannolis,” Tony said with slow, cautious enunciation, “but if you—”

“What? You—no, Tony, is this for us? Is it for a, a dinner party—”

“This is for me,” Tony clarified as he handed three twenties to the woman in exchange for his boxes. “Insurance, for when you accidentally eat eight cannolis and leave nothing for me.”

“There’s—there’s more than eight in—wait,” he tried to bring Tony’s attention back to the woman trying to give him his change, but Tony only waved her off and lead the way out of the pastry shop. 

“I know what a dozen is,” Tony told him dryly, “but since you didn’t know to get in there when there was no line, you haven’t tried this cannoli before. So we’re going to sit down, have a cup of coffee, and I’m going to be there when you inhale the best cannoli this side of Monte Bianco.”

Steve tried not to grin or even smile too obviously at Tony’s sudden burst of demands, and instead he reached ahead to open the door for the Thinking Cup for him. “I didn’t think a first date with one of my idols could get any more intense, but I think you live to prove me wrong.”

“I,” Tony stuttered and craned his head around to stare so suddenly he all but walked into a couple exiting the coffee shop, but by the way they were knowingly smirking back at them they had heard Steve, too. “This—this is a first date?”

“Well, I guess that depends,” Steve replied, his warm smile steady and confident. “It’s only the first date if you feel I deserve a second.”

Tony stared at him for another few seconds until another small group of people tried to squeeze past them, when Steve again stepped back to let them out and then followed Tony fully into the coffee shop. 

“Why don’t you sit,” he suggested, “you like it darker than outer space and bigger than the Ford Falcon?”

“How did you—”

“You’ve said it before, in faculty meetings. I’ll be right back.”

In Steve’s absence, Tony found a spot tucked against the wall not far from the window, and he settled the two boxes of cannoli in the middle of the table. He glanced over his shoulder to see how long the line was, but it was impossible to see from his angle; still, he took his phone out and immediately pulled up his messages. 

“Here you go,” Steve said quietly by way of announcing himself a few moments later. Tony shifted to put his phone in his pocket, and even seated Steve waited for Tony to look up and see him before putting their drinks on the table. 

Tony pushed one of the boxes of cannoli closer to Steve and pulled the other closer to his side. “One each.”

“Fair enough,” Steve agreed with a little shrug and, like Tony, got busy opening it. “So, what’s a professor of architecture and urbanization doing building rockets?”

Tony snorted at the question, though he couldn’t help a pleased smirk at the memory of their success. “Because I can?”

“I’m confused,” Steve noted before Tony got too much further with that, and he waved his first cannoli in Tony’s general direction as he asked, “am I supposed to play along with your hedonist facade?” 

Although he didn’t say anything, there was a hesitation, a brief pause where Tony clearly wrestled with how to respond to Steve’s unexpected perception. Immediately after, he leaned in closer across the table, and with his coffee safely in hand, he started to explain. 

“Did you know air pollution is ten times worse for people living within nine square miles of airports? Even if we forget the aggravation of heart and lung disease, asthma, chronic infections, cancer, and premature death in adults: the children who grow up in these areas grow up sick, so no matter where they go as adults, their problems persist for life. The development of their liver, kidneys, central nervous system, it all just—the fumes, the poison, they grow up sick just because their families can’t afford to move elsewhere. And no matter how much I might want to, I can’t relocate all airports or give the whole world better living arrangements, so we’re trying to fix the fuel issue,” he finally paused long enough to take a (needed) breath and a small drink. “We’re not at the point—yet—where we can build zero-emission planes, but what we’re working on is a new fuel for when they’re on the ground, taxiing, idling, and for take-off and landing.”

“What—I,” Steve finally said when he managed to say something, “I can’t believe, uh. What—what are your projected impacts?”

“We can’t make predictions yet,” Tony said with a rueful twist of his lips, “not enough data. We’re working on two more rockets, I’m doing repairs on the one we have, so—in a month, maybe?”

“That’s incredible, Tony,” Steve swore quietly, a little breathless. “That’s—that’d be a lot of lives changed.”

“If we make it happen.”

“When you make it happen,” Steve assured him, “there’s—Tony, what about your track record suggests you _wouldn’t_ be able to make it happen?”

“First of all, that’s unfair: past success is no guarantee for future success—”

“—no, nothing is guaranteed, but—”

“Second: would you eat the damn cannoli?” Tony cried, and it was only then Steve seemed to realize he’s been holding a cannoli in his hand this whole time while he listened. “It’s—I’m trying to wait here, I don’t want to be in cannoli haze and miss yours.”

A general intuition told him it was wrong to laugh at Tony’s cannoli frustration, so he bit down on the sudden urge until it was only a smile and he could take his first bite. 

The crispy shell cracked evenly and came apart in his mouth, spilling its generous, sweet cream. Steve hummed softly while he was still negotiating the shell, but the moment he really tasted it he brought his weight down on the table, braced on his elbows. He frowned with his eyes closed even as he moaned, and it was with a slow, forced reluctance that he settled his forearms on the table to put real distance between his mouth and the rest of the cannoli so he could swallow and take a moment to himself before opening his eyes again. 

“That,” Tony whispered a little unsteadily, “I—I did not think that through.” 

“This is indecent,” Steve murmured in a half-hearted accusation. 

“I don’t teach today,” Tony confided to him then, if a little hoarsely. Tony had barely finished saying _today_ before Steve pulled his phone out and thumbed over to his Lyft app. 

***

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 15:47 >**  
>  Stark, pick up my order of cannolis from Modern on your way back.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 16:11 >**  
>  Tonyyyyy how was the date?

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 16:17 >**  
>  Is it still happening?

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 16:20 >**  
>  SO EXCITING!!! I can’t believe you’re having a date that’s lasting longer than an hour this is so unlike you Tony!

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 16:20 >**  
>  ALL THE DETAILS WHEN I GET HOME!

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 16:47 >**  
>  Where are you? You said it’d be an hour

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:03 >**  
>  Tony? Two hours?

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 17:05 >**  
>  Jane says Rogers isn’t in his office either. Where are you?

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 17:05 >**  
>  If you’re messing with my cannolis there will be nowhere for you to run

> **RECEIVED FROM NEVER LET HER DRIVE @ 17:05 >**  
>  Tony are you alright? Bruce is worried.

> **RECEIVED FROM NEVER LET HER DRIVE @ 17:30 >**  
>  Don’t make me come down there. Thinking Cup on Hanover?

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:30 >**  
>  Tony? Answer me this instant, I’m worried

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:30 >**  
>  Do not make me send the police Tony if I don’t hear from you by 6 I’m calling Rhodes

> **RECEIVED FROM NEVER LET HER DRIVE @ 17:30 >**  
>  Steve isn’t answering his phone either. Where are you?

> **RECEIVED FROM NEVER LET HER DRIVE @ 17:34 >**  
>  I sent Bruce your way. He’s pissed. But text me back before he gets you!

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:35 >**  
>  Tony I am coming home early you’re scaring me. 

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:36 >**  
>  I swear if you’re hiding in your apartment and ignoring your phone I am going to beat the shit out of you with my shoes do you understand?

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:36 >**  
>  FYI: I had back to back meetings all day.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:36 >**  
>  I’m armed with heels. The worst heels.

> **RECEIVED FROM MY QUEEN AND SAVIOR @ 17:37 >**  
>  Please just answer me right now please? I love you I’ll forgive you

> **RECEIVED FROM YOU WOULDN’T LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY @ 17:54 >**  
>  Stark, where are you.

> **RECEIVED FROM NEVER LET HER DRIVE @ 17:56 >**  
>  Tony if you can still read your texts: Bruce said you’re not at the Thinking Cup or anywhere in the area. Thor is closest to your apartment. I’m sending him to check on you now.

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 17:57 >**  
>  I’M ALIVE I’LL TELL YOU LATER

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 17:57 >**  
>  I’M ALIVE I’LL TELL YOU LATER

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 17:57 >**  
>  I’M ALIVE I’LL TELL YOU LATER

> **THAT’S PROFESSOR PIG TO YOU SENT @ 17:57 >**  
>  ALSO CALL OFF DR SEXY THUNDERTHIGHS

*** 

“Tony?” 

Tony looked up from his phone at the sound of Steve drowsy rumble in time to catch Steve rolling up on an elbow to lean in close and see what was going on. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. My friends—you met Pepper,” Tony said in a sleepy drawl, though he kept glancing down at his screen, waiting for confirmation that nobody would be breaking down his door anytime soon. “They’re not convinced...” 

His words and his thoughts flitted away. Steve had started innocently with a gentle kiss pressed to Tony’s shoulder blade, and then in slow, indulgent increments he started to peel the sheets away from Tony’s body and treating every exposed expanse of skin to light, adoring kisses or the greedy scrape of his teeth at random intervals. Mesmerized and powerless to look away, Tony watched as Steve made his way further down, his broad hand skimming over Tony's abdomen and down to his hip with a possessive tenderness.

Steve was halfway down Tony’s flank when he gently prompted Tony to continue talking. 

“Not convinced of what?” he murmured against Tony’s skin as he raked his teeth over a small bruise he had only just created. Curious, Steve pulled back a moment and brushed his thumb gently over the darkening mark. 

“That you’re not—” Tony hissed softly on an inhale when the pressure from Steve’s thumb was just enough to sting, and he tugged Steve up by his hair in demand of a kiss in apology. Once their lips gradually eased apart, Tony tried again, a soft whisper against Steve’s lips. “That you’re not trying to take out the competition.”

“But I am,” Steve rumbled with a grin, if a little impatiently. “I’ve been trying to take you out for months, Tony. You didn’t notice?”

Quietly, breathlessly, Tony huffed a laugh, and he couldn’t help another tug of Steve’s hair to prompt another kiss. “Didn’t believe it,” he eventually confessed. 

“Believe it,” Steve growled, and he pushed up off the mattress until he nearly loomed over Tony’s comfortable, loose-limbed sprawl under the blankets. He lowered himself against Tony slowly, giving him every opportunity to push away until their lips finally touched again, and he captured them in a needful, hungry kiss to express himself in all the ways that words couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever feel like a Stony chat, [I'm on Tumblr (as shetlandowl)](http://shetlandowl.tumblr.com/) more often than I should be.


End file.
